Here's one thing they COULD do. Make skyrim the focus of the game, BUT, allow travel to the other provinces as well. Imagine taking a ride to cyrodill and then hauling ass to black marsh while squaring away some extra quests. I'd never buy another game, that would satisfy me enough.

Baronvvoltage:I'd actually wanna see the dwemer return, or some real explanation as to where the heck they have been since the 1st era. So far it's all speculation, and the majority of the dwemer civilization set up all over skyrim back into the mountains, so perhaps an explanation should be in order for a dlc.

Micheal Kirkbride, one of the series lore writers, confirmed, back in like 2006, what happened to the Dwemer.

The entirety of the Dwemer race merged themselves into a giant robot named Numidium, in order to try to escape the mortal realm, and anti-create themselves back to the origin of the universe.

There's dialogue for that on the disc, it was intended at some point then dummied out.

There are things I would add myself, but I believe the modding community may have done some or all of these:

-Hirelings that level up with you. I can deal with there being a limit, and I'm fine where most of the existing limits are set (high for housecarls, moderate for mercenaries, low for civilians), but it would be nice if I didn't either keep having to get thaned again or forget about having a follower entirely.

-Scale damage of destruction magic with skill level. It peters out relatively low. Maybe allow them to deal sneak attack damage like weapons and bows do. Something like that. I'm not asking everything to be in line with abusing enhance resto potions and enchants to make weapons that deal thousands of damage, but I do think it should be possible for a dedicated destruction mage with dedicated talents and gear to keep up with a dedicated smith.

-Some more hot females. I dig that female warriors look like warriors and not supermodels. I'm just saying there needs to be some more pretty women. (And if that means pretty men too, well I have an orcish archmage that's looking for something like that. Hey, I'm not gay, but some of my skyrim characters are...)

-The ability to have multiple horses, and have your followers ride them. As funny as it is to force Lydia's whiny self to run after me on a horse, it would be nice if I she could ride a spare.

Edited in as an afterthought: Allow some marriagable NPCs of the races that aren't available now. Being able to marry a catgirl would massively improve the game, with no disrespect to the lovely Shahvee in the least (<3 Shahvee).

CountArioch:-Hirelings that level up with you. I can deal with there being a limit, and I'm fine where most of the existing limits are set (high for housecarls, moderate for mercenaries, low for civilians), but it would be nice if I didn't either keep having to get thaned again or forget about having a follower entirely.

As I recall they actually fixed hirelings not leveling up with you in a patch quite awhile back.

I'm going to be the millionth person to say combat but... the combat needs some reworking. I think a good example for good first person melee combat would be The Darkness 2 (an fps of all things). There you could chose between melee or guns and often I would chose melee because it was fast and had flow. All you would need to do to implement this into Skyrim would be some modified controls to allow for directional attacking and blocking and removal of the lag before an attack.

My next one would be a more fleshed out story. I have a question, what was the main quest: the dragons or civil war? It felt like Bethesda was trying to tell two epic stories and failed overextending themselves. The dragon story is never explained beyond a sentence and the civil war was very shallow and felt small. On another subject I never traveled with companions because it seemed like any random guard could be chosen which took out the special feeling of recruiting another character who felt significant.

As a final gripe can we get towns that are more than a few one room houses in a square mile? I only really remember Whiterun with any significance because it felt like a major city. Even then most major cities feel very small.

STOP CLUSTERING EVERY MERCHANT IN WHITERUN NEAR THE FRONT GATE EVERY TIME YOU ENTER THE CITY REGARDLESS OF TIME OF DAY! I uninstalled Dawnguard because I got tired of vampires eating the merchants because they were all standing near the front gate at all hours of the day and night. Also, waiting for them to slowly wander back to their stores was slightly less annoying but still bothersome.

There's dialogue for that on the disc, it was intended at some point then dummied out.

Actually, the dialog is there because the person who voices Elisif also voices other characters who can be married, and all characters who share the same voice share all the same marriage dialog, even if you cant marry them.

I'd have made the Civil War quest the main quest of skyrim. Screw that nonsense about dragons that can destroy the world (oh yes because every time we say Alduin he was so threatening) the potential collapse of the Empire, the rise of the Thalmor and Ulfric are what its all about. You've got the chance to get a proper conflict with proper consquences that can include strong and memorable characters (hire some new writers while you're at it Bethesda, they've gotten away with murder for far too long) on both sides that you can encounter time and again. Therefore providing you with friends and rivals and maybe even an arch-nemesis (because I really would like to play a game where there is an interesting character who can go toe to toe with the protagonist several times).

Ulfric and Tullius have the potential to be great characters. We need to see them more, give them lots of things to say and do that show us their character. Maybe Ulfric fights on the front lines as he believes that is how a Nord should lead and Tullius doesn't as he wants to oversee the whole battle. For two leaders of armies in this supposedly important conflict we don't even know how they command troops or plan to wage war. They just tell the Dragonborn to capture the territories. Why not get the Emperor involved? According to the background stuff he personally led the attack to retake the Imperial city. Actions tell us more about characters than words.

While I seem to be ranting on the Civil War I'll continue, make each siege battle important. The Sieges of Whiterun/Solitude/Windhelm were dramatic. You were storming the city, taking the gates and walls, fighting in the burning streets while catapults barraged the city around you. That was memorable and made the victories seem hard fought, something you earned. Taking the other holds felt like such an anti climax. Some forts somewhere else in the hold were taken and the Jarl packs up and heads to their leaders court to sulk? Ok so some of them might run at the first sign of danger or strike a deal to remain in power (Jarl Siddegir perhaps) but there are some Jarls who I believe would defend their halls until their last breath. Baalgruf and Idgrod Ravencrone spring to mind as leaders who would not be easily humbled. Besides, if besieging Whiterun I think Baalgruf would want to participate and give his life for the city if he could. If you can make clothing for the Jarls you could make armour for them too. Some Jarls could perhaps be assassinated to take the hold? A settlement with lots of intrigue such as Riften sounds to me like a good one for that and her replacement, Maven is possibly the most tangled in intrigue in Skyrim, got links to the Dark Brotherhood and major ties to the Thieves Guild.

I'm only saying this because Skyrim was good and I wanted it to be great, also on my list quickly is much more weapons and types of weapons, more armours, revamp of Imperial and Stormcloak factions, capes/cloaks, crowns, better marriage (Serana) and much more.

Yes I know there are probably mods that can do all of this (I know there are weapon and armour mods) but I don't play Skyrim on the PC so pity me.

There's dialogue for that on the disc, it was intended at some point then dummied out.

Actually, the dialog is there because the person who voices Elisif also voices other characters who can be married, and all characters who share the same voice share all the same marriage dialog, even if you cant marry them.

JaceValm:While I seem to be ranting on the Civil War I'll continue, make each siege battle important. The Sieges of Whiterun/Solitude/Windhelm were dramatic. You were storming the city, taking the gates and walls, fighting in the burning streets while catapults barraged the city around you. That was memorable and made the victories seem hard fought, something you earned. Taking the other holds felt like such an anti climax. Some forts somewhere else in the hold were taken and the Jarl packs up and heads to their leaders court to sulk? Ok so some of them might run at the first sign of danger or strike a deal to remain in power (Jarl Siddegir perhaps) but there are some Jarls who I believe would defend their halls until their last breath. Baalgruf and Idgrod Ravencrone spring to mind as leaders who would not be easily humbled. Besides, if besieging Whiterun I think Baalgruf would want to participate and give his life for the city if he could. If you can make clothing for the Jarls you could make armour for them too. Some Jarls could perhaps be assassinated to take the hold? A settlement with lots of intrigue such as Riften sounds to me like a good one for that and her replacement, Maven is possibly the most tangled in intrigue in Skyrim, got links to the Dark Brotherhood and major ties to the Thieves Guild.

All of that was actually part of the original civil war.

Every city from Markarth to Wintehrold, yes, Wintehrold, had its own siege event, and you could make the Jarls surrender, or kill all of their armies.

And if the enemy laid siege on of your towns, and you lost, you could actually help protect the jarl as they escape, or at least that's what the scrips/quests remnants in the CK point to.

Jynthor:-More major cities/rebuild Winterhold/Helgen quest lines.(Come on Bethesda, first you remove Sutch and Kvatch from Oblivion and now you pull the same crap in Skyrim)

I dont know why people always suggest this. Back in medieval times, if a town got destroyed, people didn't rebuilt it, they moved on to a different town.

Only towns of super big importance, or that were owned by a really rich king, got rebuilt, and Helgan, and Winterhold, aren't such towns.

Because in the game world there is a big place with a ruin with space to make a city, I don't care about repairing those cities specifically, I just care about more major cities. Other than that I find building/upgrading things in games fun, especially when you've got something to show for your effort(In this case, a city)

JaceValm:While I seem to be ranting on the Civil War I'll continue, make each siege battle important. The Sieges of Whiterun/Solitude/Windhelm were dramatic. You were storming the city, taking the gates and walls, fighting in the burning streets while catapults barraged the city around you. That was memorable and made the victories seem hard fought, something you earned. Taking the other holds felt like such an anti climax. Some forts somewhere else in the hold were taken and the Jarl packs up and heads to their leaders court to sulk? Ok so some of them might run at the first sign of danger or strike a deal to remain in power (Jarl Siddegir perhaps) but there are some Jarls who I believe would defend their halls until their last breath. Baalgruf and Idgrod Ravencrone spring to mind as leaders who would not be easily humbled. Besides, if besieging Whiterun I think Baalgruf would want to participate and give his life for the city if he could. If you can make clothing for the Jarls you could make armour for them too. Some Jarls could perhaps be assassinated to take the hold? A settlement with lots of intrigue such as Riften sounds to me like a good one for that and her replacement, Maven is possibly the most tangled in intrigue in Skyrim, got links to the Dark Brotherhood and major ties to the Thieves Guild.

All of that was actually part of the original civil war.

every city of Markarth to wintehrold, yes, wintehrold, had its own siege event, and you could make the Jarls surrender or kill all of their armies.

RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Ahem* My most sincere apologies for my outburst.

Just seems like diminishing the fun of the Civil War questline, like somebody at Bethesda tried it and said, hmmmm could be a bit more low key, don't want it to take centre stage to distract people from our big dragon adventure. It's not like the Civil War is the first thing the player is introduced to in the game.... oh wait.

I just want something I love so much to be as good as it can be, thats not too much to ask... is it? *sobs*

I would add in my quests which don't follow the line of hey I need some form of magical thing I heard it was at the bottom of a dungeon filled with Draugr.

Add in more smaller villages and random houses in the woods to make the place feel less empty.

Make combat actually fun instead of swing randomly in general direction or spam magic in general direction.

Allow you to summon more than two things at a time because god damn it I want to roam the lands with my Skelebro army fighting crime.

Spears.

Change the plot so that the player character is the new Tiber Septim and they can do all of the different guilds quests so that they will join your faction as you fight the Aldmeri Dominion freeing Skyrim from their control.

Add in an actual threat for the main bad guy instead of a dragon which just chills out until you show up to fight him.

erttheking:I'd probably make the combat system more Dark Souls like. Not as hard, but with the same system, because run up and just swing your sword until the guys fall down isn't the best. Heck, when I think about it, fighting in Minecraft was more tense than Skyrim.

I would make it more like almost ANY other game, to be honest. I started Skyrim after Playing Kingdoms of Amalur and, for all the flaws you can bring up about KoA the combat was fluid and dynamic.

My other big thing would be people. Even before NPC start dying off, the land is pretty desolate. I may be a champion in Skyrim, but most cities could house their populations in a phone booth. Am I dating myself by saying phone booth? You know, those things drug dealers used before pagers and homeless people used them as a bathroom?

But also, it annoys me that people just die and go away. I don't know, it seems perfectly possible to have most of Skyrim be a ghost town after random dragon attacks. With zero population growth (well, negative), who the hell am I fighting for? It already seems dead, so what will fewer people do?

More random events to make the game feel more alive & one thing I think some of us may remember from previous games of the series.

Enchanters and blacksmiths that improve weapons, pay a 'shit ton' of septums and have your weapon enchanted for you instead of being told like an idiot that they'd like you to do it yourself. No, no. Here's a better idea, I give you 40,000 septums, you make my sword catch fire. MAKE IT SO.

Just seems like diminishing the fun of the Civil War questline, like somebody at Bethesda tried it and said, hmmmm could be a bit more low key, don't want it to take centre stage to distract people from our big dragon adventure. It's not like the Civil War is the first thing the player is introduced to in the game.... oh wait.

I just want something I love so much to be as good as it can be, thats not too much to ask... is it? *sobs*

Well, while no one knows the real reason why all of it was cut, there are some theories.

While the Battle of Whiterun was fun, imagine doing it like 5 more times.

and while everyone hates capturing forts, imagine having to not only capture forts, but every other town, mill, mine, and farm, in the game, in the EXACT same type "go here and kill respawning dudes until we tell you that you are done."

And you know those small quests like "capture Intel from an enemy runner" quests you do ebfore each fort caputre? imagine having to do those like 50 times.

While it sounds cool on paper, the civil war was SUPER repetitive, more so then it is now.

While I wish we could have had the full civil war, I can also see why Bethesda removed it, it was just a bunch of forced "go here and kill X quests" but on a MASSIVE scale.

I think it would be pretty nifty to have the availability to ignite arrows on sources of fire. Hitting a lightly armoured enemy in fur or leather armour would cause them to catch fire after a short while, maybe about 5 seconds (50% chance). The fire would burn out after another 5 seconds, but would cause them to stop attacking and start patting themselves down frantically.

The ability to decapitate people, sever or cripple limbs in regular combat instead of just finishing moves would be neat as well...provided your swings were accurate and appropriate. Something like the combat system in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

Using frost spells on floors to cause people to slip and fall if they are in heavy armour. Using electrical spells to electrocute people in steel or iron armour.

Severing ropes with a bladed weapon to cause the heavy ceiling braziers in Nord barrows to fall from the ceiling. Or maybe to cause a loose support to collapse and smash down a wall.

Several of these ideas were implemented in a game called Dark Messiah: Of Might and Magic, which came out in 2006.

Just seems like diminishing the fun of the Civil War questline, like somebody at Bethesda tried it and said, hmmmm could be a bit more low key, don't want it to take centre stage to distract people from our big dragon adventure. It's not like the Civil War is the first thing the player is introduced to in the game.... oh wait.

I just want something I love so much to be as good as it can be, thats not too much to ask... is it? *sobs*

Well, while no one knows the real reason why all of it was cut, there are some theories.

While the battle of whiterun was fun, imagine doing it like 5 more times.

and while everyone hates capturing forts, imagine having to not only capture forts, but every other town, mill, mine, and farm, in the game, in the EXACT same type "go here and kill respawning dudes until we tell you that you are done."

While it sounds cool on paper, the civil war was SUPER repetitive, more so then it is now.

I suppose it is true that having the big events occur sparingly makes them more memorable, though I still think they could have got assaults on cities and tried to go for some variation.

I just worry that Bethesda isn't challenging themselves enough sometimes, their games sell extremely well, receive a great deal of praise and their worlds are excellent, but they haven't addressed their issues with creativity, bad writing or clunky combat.

Though I wouldn't be saying this if a new Bethesda game had just come out, I'd still be in the honeymoon period where I'm ignoring its flaws and dazzled by what it gets right (which is plenty). This kind of criticism comes after having the game for a while and I can come to my confession booth and admit I don't like the combat and the dragons are pathetic.

Baronvvoltage:I'd actually wanna see the dwemer return, or some real explanation as to where the heck they have been since the 1st era. So far it's all speculation, and the majority of the dwemer civilization set up all over skyrim back into the mountains, so perhaps an explanation should be in order for a dlc. Would also love a quest line for the rejuvenation of the snow elves or a way yo make the calmer slowly become more like them thru some ritual magics. Just my two cents.

Less Draugr would have been nice as well, or at least have them be more varied. Almost all of them just charged you with melee weapons except for scourges.

Agreed. Some could give their life-force to others, to heal or partially shield them, while not attacking you personally. Fighting several death lords was a challenge in Skyrim, but only because they all ran straight for you in a disorganised and mindless mob. Granted, their minds have decayed considerably over the years, but the higher ranked ones could employ tactics, like forming shield walls in tight corridors while the sorcerers - or acolytes - buffed them.

The disarm shout should not have been given to your enemies in Skyrim, I think. It is a pain in the backside that causes all combat to cease while you run around looking for a weapon that you have to pick up, equip and favourite again each time it leaves your hand. It adds tedium and annoyance to tense battles. Heaven forbid you lose it in some grassy field, cave pool or abyssal pit.

For example, the lore goes on about how fast Khajiit and Bosmer are supposed to be, yet the movement cycles are the same as anything else. Bosmer should be able to sprint and run completely silently, whilst Khajiit should be bulleting off the walls and between branches like Altair on crack. Then alter terrains to suit, Bosmer incur no movement penalty in thick brush, Dunmer/Argonians handle deserts better, Nords can navigate blizzards easily and so on.

Having greater difference between combat styles wouldn't hurt either, Nords being able to punch out bears whilst Argonians/Khajiit gain a biting stealth attack (for one hit kill: sneak up behind, clamp down on the neck and don't let go till it stops twitching!) for example.

Of course, being TES, players should be able to train any character to do anything, because an Altmer with a lethal bite would be hilarious, but starting stats and abilities could really do with being far more divergent.

I believe the combat needs a complete overhaul. It's so basic it doesn't leave much room for strategy. And then as soon as that's fixed it would leave room for a lot of interesting things like some platforming and big boss fights.

I'd want a more in-depth combat system like many people have suggested as I mainly play in 3rd person anyway. Fighting with the current system in Skyrim just feels a little too clunky.

But what I'd want above all is realistic relationships between the PCC and NPCs. Skyrim relationships just seem so clinical and there isn't really much depth to them. I'd like a tonne of new dialogue and a relationship system with the important people in my Skyrim life. It would just serve to make the whole experience that much more immersive.

Console mod compatibility.That solves the entire problem and I think the next elder scrolls game should have it.I'm so tired of watching youtube videos of awesome mods for Skyrim on my laptop that barely runs Morrowind. So much envy.

But other than that, something that is hard to mod into the game is depth.If Skyrim was a body of water, it would be 10 miles wide and an inch deep.But as it is, I still really enjoy it so I'm happy.

I'd say get rid of dragons, at least after the main quest, because they're so god damn boring. I mean once you get past the initial awe of it being a dragon, you realize that it's just another enemy but with more health, and an annoying attack pattern that doesn't let you really hit it half the time. They also show up all the time once you finish the main quest.

The Civil War story was more interesting anything, potentially, but none of that build up about the Empire and the Dominion ever comes to anything.

A small thing I'd be happy with though, is just finish dual wielding by adding a second sheathe and appropriate draw animation.

I would have liked to see role-playing kept in. The free-for-all "be whatever you want" thing is all well and good, but every player character is just a bland, generic slate. Restrictions, benefits to being a particular class, stats, anything to differentiate characters.

I'm currently shelving Skyrim till the mods get more stable(hmmm... they might have by now.... I haven't played since last march). Random CTD's in the forest around Riften drove me nuts (it's probably a texture issue that's only located in that area but I'm not sure).

I got Morrowind and Oblivion during the Steam christmas sale so I'm interested to see how the series has evolved or devolved as some say since then*. I have to say in the short time I've played Morrowind (like 2 hours short) there is a gigantic amount of exposition and lore from the NPCs though dialogue that progresses the quest can lost in the list a bit. Makes me a little nostalgic for the time when reading npc dialogue text wasn't considered so immersion breaking. That being said, I imagine it would be strange to see a game that had some high fidelity 3d graphics that suddenly had to freeze for dialogue as the characters mimed their emotions to reflect the text. It feels more jarring as character models get more detailed..................

*forgets what the topic was**glances up*

...err.

Oh right... *cough*, I have Skyrim on the PC and the modding community has made quite a bit of added content(probably including models of flyswatters/raid canisters and other silly things) that a lot of I wanted new or more of like crafting new equipment was easy enough to get. I haven't played any of the other Elder Scrolls games before Skyrim until now so I don't know if I would want to add anything lore specific until I get more familiar with the previous games.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________*(I know there are previous ES games to Morrowind, I think they were Daggerfall and Arena but it's been a while since I watched the Bethesda ep of"All Your History Are Belong To Us" on it so I could be wrong, but I'm not too interested in those games)